


if you need me, better hurry cause i'm leaving soon

by chxrrywhine



Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: (and BOY does he have many of them), Angst, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Michael Guerin has feelings, Pre-Episode: S2e01
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-21
Updated: 2020-03-21
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:14:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23236777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chxrrywhine/pseuds/chxrrywhine
Summary: There is a grave.That was one thing Liz had insisted on.
Relationships: Max Evans & Michael Guerin
Comments: 4
Kudos: 15





	if you need me, better hurry cause i'm leaving soon

**Author's Note:**

> title is from "listen before i go" by billie eilish.
> 
> i simply had way too many feelings after the season premiere. oof. 
> 
> this is unbeta'd. all mistakes are my own but hopefully there aren't many

There is a grave.

That was one thing Liz had insisted on. No, they couldn’t tell anyone Max was dead. No, Max wasn’t even lying in there, rotting away, but there had to be a grave. It was non-negotiable. Michael didn’t exactly see where Liz Ortecho got off making such personal decisions but he was too tired to argue, and Izzie was too catatonic to answer, so.

There is a grave, just inside Roswell’s border. There’s no name, just in case some dumbass kids wander too far and get too curious. Just a stick in the ground and a bunch of dead flowers at the base.

It’s so pathetic it’s almost sad to look at.

Michael hates it. He hates it so much, there’s really no reason for him to spend so much time there, staring down at the only thing left of his brother. Half-brother. Whatever. But he can’t stay away. He doesn’t even try and he knows himself well enough at this point to know that there’s no use arguing with himself.

So when he ends up at the grave at eleven pm on a Tuesday night, all he can really do is crack open another beer for the fourth night in a row and take a long sip. A very long sip. He’s been through a lot, he’s earned it. Maria would say that he can’t keep using his grief as an excuse to drink himself into oblivion, but Maria isn’t here and Maria doesn’t know Max is dead anyway. It kind of pisses him off that she probably thinks he’s drinking because of Noah, but denying that would open up a can of worms he’s not prepared to wrestle with, so he doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t say a word.

Story of his life.

He doesn’t usually talk at Max’s grave—seriously, it’s literally _just a stick_ and that would reach levels of patheticness far deeper than Michael is willing to sink to—but tonight is not usual. Tonight is big and loud like an orchestra playing in his brain, and the words spill out before he can stop them.

“You sure made a damn mess of things, didn’t you? Just had to be the hero one more time, huh, Max? Well, fuck you for that.”

Max doesn’t answer. Michael doesn’t even realize he’s waiting for him to until he’s met with warm, desert silence. He drowns his disappointment with another gulp of beer and sits down. He’s gonna be here awhile.

“You should see Iz. You know, your sister? You remember her? The one you left behind all broken and messed up? Yeah, you should see her. You should see what you did to her, all because you wanted to get into Liz Ortecho’s pants. How’s that working out for you, Max?”

He doesn’t know what he’s saying. He’s not even sure if he means it but it feels good to be angry. It feels good to be angry at Max specifically. It’s not the first time, but it will be the last. Even if he holds onto this anger for the rest of his life, it’ll be the last time Michael is ever angry with his idiot, do-gooder brother, so excuse him if he wants to hold onto that a little longer. Huh, maybe he is sentimental after all.

A drop of condensation rolls from the bottle and plops onto the ground. “I hate you a little bit right now. I hate you so much. But that’s nothing new. I always hate you a little bit. Max Evans, the boy who ate the whole world and still wasn’t full enough.” He runs a hand over his eyes. “Dude, I’m so fucking drunk right now. I can’t believe you’ve got me out here, man. Fuck you for that too.”

Michael is ninety-nine percent convinced that Max got himself killed just to screw with him, because of all the people on this earth, only Max is the one who knows he hates gravesites. It doesn’t matter how big they are, how fancy or ornate, they all reek of death and corpses, and he’s so not about that. Funny considering his track record.

“I had a pet crow, once. Did I ever tell you that? No, I never told you that. Mostly because it would have been so damn pathetic. You got the family, and the home, and I got a bird with, like, diseases or whatever. But yeah. I had a crow. I was eight and living on a ranch with this family, and one summer, this bird kept coming up to my window. It wouldn’t do anything. It’d just sit there and fucking chirp or whatever. Chirp. Caw. Do crows chirp? I think they caw.” He takes another drink and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. “Anyway. We had a good thing going, me and this bird. He didn’t have a name but that was okay because neither did I. So, I’d sneak him some oats from the barn when I fed the horses—I know how to ride horses, did you know that?—and he would bring me, like some, fuck. I don’t know what they’re called. Shiny stuff. Triknets. Trikest. Is that the word. It doesn’t sound like a word. Anyway, he’d bring me that stuff and I’d leave my window open so he’d have a place to land. And then one day, I was at school and someone closed the window. Don’t know who, doesn’t matter. I forgot to open it back up, and then the next day… The next day, I go downstairs, and there he is.”

That had been such a shitty day, too. His foster parents probably hadn’t even known what hit him: one minute he was fine, the next he was on his knees on the ground, keening over the cold, dead body of a mangy looking bird. His foster father had tried to pry the bird away from him, while his foster mom hysterically babbled into the phone about _this demonic child you’ve brought us_ , but none of it mattered. Clumps of feathers came off in his hands, and his foster dad slapped him upside the back of his head before dragging him back into the house, and none of it mattered because he didn’t have his brother, and he didn’t have his sister, and now he didn’t even have his crow. It didn’t seem like too much to ask that he could have at least one thing that didn’t go away, but maybe that had been too much to ask. Maybe he could deserve it, one day, if he tried hard enough. Maybe.

Or maybe not, as it would turn out. He sits up—when did he start laying down?—and clears his throat. “I’m way too drunk for this.” He finishes the bottle and cracks open another one. “I don’t know where I was going with that story. I’ve never been good at death Max. Never. I thought it’d be one of those things I’d grow out of, like being afraid of the dark. Or, like, believing in Santa Claus or whatever. I never believed in Santa Claus. You were probably one of those kids who believed in Santa Claus. I thought I’d grow out of being bad at it but I didn’t. I still hate it just as much as I did the first time, which is dumb, cause it always seems to follow me around like a… smell I can’t wash away. I don’t know, man. Part of me thinks I did this to you. To Izzie, and my mom. It feels so dramatic to say it out loud but it’s the only thing that makes sense. Either that, or we all just have really shitty luck. Maybe it’s an alien thing. Anyway, I don’t think I’m egotistical”—(he has to say this word slowly in order for all the syllables to fit properly on his tongue)—“enough to think I actually did this to you, I think I just miss you and want you to call me on my bullshit, but—”

Oh. Wait. His mom. He hadn’t meant to mention his mom. He hasn’t even told Izzie about that. Oops. Oh well. At least Max is better at keeping secrets (he almost chokes on his beer laughing at that even though nothing is funny). Maybe in a past life he was that guy in charge of carrying people to the underworld in Greek mythology. Maybe that’s why he’s surrounded by so much death all the time. It wasn’t so bad for a while, not until Liz Ortecho blew into town and fucked everything sideways. Everything started with her.

“I wish I could hate her, you know? Your girl. I wish I could hate her. What she did to you. She changed you, man. She took you and turned you inside out. I’m not even sure it was all bad, but you. You healed her and betrayed us. You saved her sister and left your own, I mean what the fuck is that, Max?” There goes that anger again. Michael stands up because it doesn’t make sense to be this angry and be sitting down. “You were the one who said we had to keep our powers hidden. You were the one who called the shots and you were the one who decided to raise a dead girl back to life like you’re Jesus Christ or something, and…” He laughs and it sounds sad and hysterical. “I’m just remembering all the times you called me un-subtle with my powers. Me, _unsubtle_ , but you… Oh, you, Max. You who just can not be outdone, you bring a girl back to life. Liz Ortecho’s girl. You raise her up and we’re all just supposed to deal with it. We’re just supposed to be okay. Yeah, well, I’m sure you can probably guess what I’m about to say but fuck you thrice, Max Evans. I’m gonna throw up.”

He sits back down (or maybe he collapses, because nothing sustains him like his anger, and when it leaves, he feels like a nameless little boy again) and presses his hands against his eyes. He doesn’t throw up but it’s a near thing. He’s tired all of a sudden. He’s very tired, and very in pain. It’s pain so loud, so strong and burning that it feels physical, a spiked lead weight poking holes in his brain. He’s cracking a little bit, maybe.

Because first it was Noah. Psychopathic, sociopathic, whatever-pathic Noah. He doesn’t have enough room in his head to unravel and deconstruct the layers of fuckery that are Noah Bracken. He hates the guy, he knows that, but he was also his brother in law for longer than he was a deranged killer (sort of). He was family, at least, and that… that means something to him. Sometimes, Michael wishes it didn’t mean a thing at all, but it does. It does, and for the life of him, he can’t comprehend loving someone and doing what Noah did to Izzie to them, so maybe it’s good that Noah never loved his sister because that’s not love. Michael, for all his faults and all his flaws, knows love. Oh, does he know love. He’s felt it, bled for it, drank from it’s well since he was a teenager. He knows love. Noah was never in love with Izzie, but he loved Noah (sort of). In the only way he knows how to love people who aren’t Alex Manes or his siblings. So yeah, he loved him. And then Max killed him.

And then Max died.

Max _died_.

“That wasn’t supposed to happen.” He’s running out of steam, running out of words, but he needs to say this before he can’t anymore. Michael shakes his head. He’s _tired_. “You weren’t supposed to do that to me. I was supposed to do that you. I was supposed to do that to you because you’re the one they actually want.” The voice is his own, but the words are everyone else’s when he says: “‘Max is a good boy, Max is a hero. Why can’t you be more like Max, Michael?’ Roswell’s very own Andy fucking Griffith. No, you don’t get to die and leave me alone when I need you, because I’m not you, man. I’m not even close. I don’t have that weird Wonder-Twin connection like you do with Iz. I don’t know how to make her better, I don’t even know if she can get better, and you did that to me. You were not supposed to do that to me. You were not supposed to leave me with your shoes to fill. Hell, if the roles were reversed, it’d be a walk in the park for you. There are a million me’s out there in the world, Max, but there’s only one of you. Was only one of you. Fuck. I hate how cheesy that sounds. I hate this. I hate you. I hate everything about this, just—” He cuts himself off. There’s dampness on his cheeks and he tells himself it’s rain, even though he can see the stars and it hasn’t rained in three months. “I get it, man, okay? I get it. This is your final _screw you_ from the grave. Well let me tell you, Max, you’ve made a big fucking mistake because I can’t be you. Okay? I’m six ways to wasted right now, I spend more nights puking up my guts in the drunk tank than I do at my own house. So well done, good job. How about you come back and finish what you started, huh? The savior of Roswell, when’s your resurrection?” 

Michael pauses, takes a deep breath. Runs a hand over his face. He feels too sober, too raw and exposed. No Max. No Mom. Not even a fake brother like Noah to fill the void Max’s death leaves behind. Just nothing, nothing, nothing.

“It’s trinkets. That’s the word. That’s the one I was looking for.”

He stands up, with some effort, and wipes off the seat of his pants. There’s no way he’s driving tonight so he goes around to the back of his truck, hops in the bed, and pulls a blanket up over his body. It smells like fresh air and mildew. He lies on his back and waits for sleep to come. He feels both quiet and restless, like he’s drained himself dry, and like there are still too many words he has left to say, but he doesn’t think that feeling will ever go away. He wants to tell Max about Alex, now that he knows—knew—their history. He wants to tell him about ghosting Maria, and about Alex’s stupid guitar, and about a folder marked with pain and torture.

He wants to tell him about the hollowness that eats through his chest like acid, and about how it’s nothing compared to the loneliness the burns bright in his core. He wants to tell his brother everything, and he wants to ignore his (probably good) advice, and Michael wants to hate him a little bit in person instead of just hating the stick in the ground that’s the only physical reminder that Max Evans once lived.

But he can’t do any of that, can he?

Sleeps drags at his eyelids. Michael rolls over onto his side so he doesn’t do something stupid like choke and die on his own vomit and tips his hat over his eyes.

“Same time tomorrow, then?”

Max doesn’t answer.

Before he falls asleep, the last thought Michael has is wondering whether or not he’ll stop expecting him to.

**Author's Note:**

> also, as an aside: writing a fic with only one voice is very different than writing a fic with multiple voices! we love a good creative challenge.
> 
> no social media accounts, so hit me up in the comments if you want ! and to all my readers in the COVID-19 quarantine zones, ilyvm, stay safe and keep that social distance !


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